Only a captain with his share of tales about dark nights and stormy seas is really worth spending time with - and even returning to - for the chance to hear about adventure and tragedy narrowly, and sometimes not, avoided.
So let's return to a captain who definitely has his fair share of stories, Elliot Hooper. Last time we heard from him, Captain Hooper had just arrived in St. John from Key West aboard the mighty tall ship Silver Cloud.
Hooper pulled into Coral Bay harbor in St. John the very same day Hurricane Hugo tore though the island chain.
But that didn't stop Hooper or make him think of returning form whence he came. Instead, he weathered that storm - and quite a few others over the years - aboard the 110-foot steel beauty Silver Cloud.
But no one, not even Captain Hooper, can sail a 110-foot vessel into a harbor without raising a few eyebrows, even in the Virgin Islands.
"There were only about 50 of us living out here in Coral Bay then," said Hooper. "I sailed into Coral Bay and within a week they made me get a mooring permit. It was probably the fastest anyone has ever gotten a mooring permit around here."
Hooper had brought his t-shirt printing equipment down from the Keys and was running the business aboard Silver Cloud. It didn't take long, however, before he realized he needed to secure a place on dry land.
"By the fall of 1989, it had become obvious that I needed to get a place for the business," Hooper said. "So I secured this place with a friend and started Tall Ship Trading Company, but at that time we weren't doing any trading, just the t-shirts."
Tall Ship Trading still calls the same structure in Coral Bay home, albeit with a few bigger and stronger roofs secured overhead over the years. The inside of the building is constructed right into the rocky hillside and is filled with much of the very same equipment that Hooper brought down from Keys.
The shop still has the same pirate feel. It's filled with pictures of friends, paintings by Hooper's old buddy David Wegman and nautical curiosities. A mast is secured above the entrance and port holes allow light in when the doors are closed.
When Hooper set up shop in 1989, Tall Ship Trading was the first silk screening business on St. John and it remains the only one.
In no time, Hooper was silk screening t-shirts for businesses across the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.
"Before long, we were doing all the bars and restaurants around here," said Hooper. "Within a year we were full of orders."
Meanwhile, Silver Cloud was moored at the mouth of Coral Bay harbor and Hooper tended to her on weekends and whenever else he found the time. He didn't get much done on her for about three years. "In the winter of 1991, I begged and borrowed money from everyone I could and I got a group of friends down from the Keys and we set out for Venezuela," said the captain. "I had to haul Silver Cloud out and sand blast her hull. Before that she was just a grey rust bucket."
"In Venezuela I fixed her hulls and gave her her first paint job - green," he added.
Work in the boat yard took a bit longer than Hooper first thought and he ended up parting with a beloved belonging in order to come up with the necessary funds.
"Silver Cloud ended up needing more work than I originally thought," Hooper said. "I had re-built this 1941 panel wagon in Key West and sailed down with her on the bow. I sold that to a guy from Puerto Rico who ended up driving her over there for 10 more years."
Funds secured, Hooper made it back to St. John loaded down with hard wood, ceramic tile, coffee and hammocks.
"The boat was full right up to the hatches - it was crazy," Hooper said. "We were so heavy and low in the water we ended up taking on water on the sail back and I couldn't tell where it was coming from. So we just turned around, hove-to and slapped some underwater epoxy on her and got moving again."
And the trading part of Tall Ship Trading was launched. Hooper took Silver Cloud back to the boat yard in Venezuela again in 1992 and 1993, which would be his last haul out on the South American mainland.
"When we were there in 1993, there was coup and it was a scary time," he said. "There was martial law and a curfew and kids with machine guns on every corner. It was total chaos."
The captain lost out on a deal when he put a deposit down on a load of tile, only to find the shop completely gone when he returned to collect the product. Hooper was able, however, to secure a shipment of wood and headed back for St. John thankful to be putting the boat yard behind. The year 1993 turned out to be a better one for Hooper though, who bought out his business partner and ended up meeting his wife Mary Jo that year.
"That's when things really came together," said the captain. "Before that I had the boat and the business but I wasn't really progressing. Jo and I decided if we were going to have this we'd take care of things, and we have."
